1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to animal feeders and more particularly to animal feeders which collect spilled materials.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Pet owners are very familiar with the mess that a household pet can make while feeding. Typically, a dog or a cat is provided with two feeding bowls, one of which contains water and the other one of which contains the animal's food. When the feeding bowls are placed on the floor there is a tendency for the pet, in its enthusiasm, to slop some of the contents of the bowls onto the surrounding floor areas.
This tendency for a pet to slop food and water from its bowls can, to a degree, be minimized by anchoring the bowls to a feeding stand. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,555,396 of Cosner, U.S. Pat. No. 2,841,114 of Grant, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,845,896 of Copeland all teach pet bowl feeding stands including a solid, impermeable surface provided with circular holes receptive to a number of feeding bowls. The rims of the bowl are substantially flush with the impermeable surface, so any food or water pushed from the bowls would tend to accumulate on the surface and eventually on the floor surface surrounding the feeding stations.
In U.S. Pat. No. 1,803,413 of Trites, U.S. Pat. No. 1,114,264 of Hoyle, U.S. Pat. No. 2,586,979 of Myers, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,874,141 of Sueper, poultry drinking stands are described including a receptacle, a fine-mesh grid placed over the the receptacle, and a bowl of water placed on top of the mesh. Any water which may slop over the sides of the bowl flow through the fine-mesh grid and into the receptacle for storage and subsequent disposal.
While the devices described in the preceding paragraph are well adapted for the watering of poultry, they would not be very useful for household pets. Firstly, the water bowls are not attached to the grid surface but rather are free to slide over it, and would undoubtedly be pushed to the floor by a household pet. Secondly, the interstices of the grids are too small to pass particulate matter which might be dislodged from the pet's food bowl. For example, the interstices of a grid would need to be at least 1/2" across to allow pieces of dog kibble to pass through.
Thus, what the prior art fails to address is a pet feeder assembly which collects both liquid and particulate matter that has been slopped from a pet's feeding bowls, and which further immobilizes the feeding bowls to a stand.